Gah! Stupid AI!

[unmerged(27886)]

I am playing HOI2 using DD/ARM 1.3 Beta 2 on Aggressive/Normal.

Playing as Italy, I have done better than ever before (Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, Hungary are all annexed). I just Allied with Germany in April of 40, shortly afterwards they declared war on Belgium and the Netherlands.

I begin my operations taking Gibralter/Suez, attcking Nice and Marseille, etc...
I saw that the germans annexec luxembourg, but didn't see anything after that.

Well, its now June of of 40 and the Germans are just sitting still not moving or attacking. I have even gone so far as to attack the Maginot Line and force the french to retreat... But the Germans do not follow up.

So, I COULD take all of france fairly easily. However, I think Germany needs to control Paris to fire the Vichy event. Is there any way to fire the Vichy event short of through the Console? Anyway to get the German AI to get off its lazy But? If this happens against France, I don't want to think of what will happen against the USSR.

 

[soulking]

You could download DAIM a mod that (I hear) improves the AI

 

[Jos de trol]

not sure if there's a patern there but as Italy I have noticed the german ai becoming quite passive if you interfere with their war on france. I've also felt I've had to mow down the french from behind just to let the germans advance a little. Now I'm playing a game where I didn't interfere and they were behaving normally.

I dunno, maybe it's just that the German AI tends to advance quite slow when invading France (it tend to pass through belgium into france rather slowly in general) and we just feel it is doing nothing but it's just because human players can do it faster?

 

[unmerged(141551)]

you could use "event 2021" on the F12 console

 

[unmerged(27886)]

No, I think you have it right.

I reloaded my saved game, and watched the Germans steadily advance through netherlands and Belgium.....

As soon as I joined the Axis, Germany went into passive mode. I conquered all of south east france, and waited for the Germans to take on Paris.... and waited...

Eventually I got peeved because I could have just WALKED into Paris with my Italian troops and taken it quite easily. So I manually fired the Vichy event.

In '41, Germany allied with Romania and Bulgaria, but never DOW the USSR for Barbarossa(waited till end of July). So I reloaded back to May and did the DoW myself. That at least kicked the germans into gear as they thinned out their beach defenses in france and moved troops towards the eastern front. Sad AI is advancing terribly slow. I have already taken Stalingrad and my MTN troops have cut off Baku and are advancing towards it. I am trying to create a HUGE pocket of SOV troops to be annihilated, but there is 1-3 enemy INF units dug in in the last province needed for cutting off the supplies from the coast, and I have just 3 CAV/ac nearby. Germans have tons of troops, but just sit there.

I was too slow in my advance though, by trying to create the pocket, and now there are a decent # of troops in and around moscow. Gonna make it hard to take that objective before the snows close in.

I have ~75 INF, 65 MIL, 12 MTN, 4 HQ, 6 CAV/ac, 6 MOT/ac, and 3 MECH/spa. and I am spread THIN trying to make up for the Germans lack of aggressiveness.

Funny too, because Japan annexed and puppeted China in only a month or two longer than it takes me to do the same task.

 

[Tornadoli]

So, I am playing as Italy, and joined the axis in 1936. Do you recommend to leave axis because germany will be too passive?

 

[bbasgen]

So, I am playing as Italy, and joined the axis in 1936. Do you recommend to leave axis because germany will be too passive?

Yes. I can't explain why the AI does this, but Germany becomes brain dead as soon as you join the alliance. Germany will be able to hold a line against the Soviet Union, but not advance. Wait to join them until *after* they start getting pushed back.

 

[unmerged(27886)]

I formed an alliance with GER right after conquering Ethiopia (I stayed at war with them for a bit to keep my CG need down). I wanted all those nice blueprints.

Then before I make a DoW against Nationalist Spain, I leave the alliance. I don't want GER making any landings in spain and taking MY property. Also, I know that the Anschluss event does not fire if GER is at war.

After I conquer Spain, I rejoin GER until Aug 1 of 39. I then leave the alliance again. I do this for several reasons. First, I do not wish to be the focus of France and Brittain. Second, I want to conquer Greece, Yugoslavia, and Hungary (after waiting for the GoI's to expire) without any intervention by other countries or need to split my forces.

Then I waited till GER had conquered the Netherlands and Belgium, and was "starting" to advance into france when I joined them. After that, they went into slow motion....

I have modified the return of Vichy event, so ITA has an option to lay claim to some territories instead of giving them to Vichy.(The french coastline along the med, corsica, plus one or two other provinces). Doing so adds 10 belligerence to ITA.

I just like to have a landline connection to Spain. Makes my armed forces/convoy management so MUCH easier with a land connection. And since I have 3 possible fronts to pay attention to, I don't mind making it a little simpler.

On a side note, I found the best strategy for North Africa is to take Tel Aviv via amphibious assault, then march to and take the Suez. Then from Tobruk, head east and take alexandria (use all aircraft based in crete to gound attack the retreating brittish troops to death so that alexandria will be weak and easy to hit, especially with some added shore bombardment.)

Alexandria has something like 6 land forts, a port, and an airstrip. Plus, it is only bordered by 2 provinces and 1 of them has a river crossing. This is a good choke point to hold off the Allies. I committed 4 INF + 5 MIL to Suez and 7 INF + 10 MIL to garrisoning Alexandria. I used my two 0 lvl generals plus a couple of other lvl 1 defensive doctrine LT Generals. The AI has no port on the med and no airbase in range. They can't even come CLOSE to dislodging me. This frees up my attention for the naval warfar going on off the coast of spain and the land war in the USSR, without wasting tons of time taking worthless dirt in africa only to have a counter attack from nowhere cut off your supplies or reinforcements counter attack and start pushing you back.

 

[bbasgen]

Yes, what you have done is the most efficient method. It is gamey, of course, but within some degree of reason since the AI behaves poorly. In terms of Africa, the Sinai peninsula is your top priority. Taking North Africa *can* be nice: it ensures Allied fleets are out of supply and the Allies have no air bases nearby. The problem with taking North Africa is: (a) sucks away precious manpower in holding some kind of defensive line, presumably around Egypt or Ethiopia; (b) will become a liability when/if the Allies are at war with Vichy, and steam roll across Africa.

Good luck with the USSR. If you are allied with Germany, it will be more challenging, particularly with your relatively low manpower.

 

[Spookyashell]

A few things I have seen in 1.3_B2

No Tech sharing between Allies. AI never offer med tachs anymore. Did all the time in 1.2

Also I think they are cheating or I missed something. When I played Germany in 1.2 Annexed countries territories was never considered my natural provinces, In 1.3 I see Denmark, Poland and such are Germanies natural provinces after they annexed those countries, so Even though I kicked the nazi's out of all Danish provinces I could not liberate them. Cheaters . I might have missed something though.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

I've certainly not had problems with tech sharing, any allies have been all to keen to share their blueprints. It's even to the point where a few amusing offers have come up, such as little Iceland offering me one of the higher CVL blueprints.

 

[unmerged(27886)]

My manpower isn't too much of an issue. I stopped building manpower intensive units when it hit around 400. Now its just planes, boats, and the occasional MOT/MECH.

However, taking on the USSR has proven to be a REAL issue. I helped create a big pocket of USSR troops, and managed to cut them off from supply. I am holding the line to keep them from connecting back up, but my line is pretty thin, so its not easy.

Germany has a gazillion troops just hanging out doing nothing. If they just tried to collapse the pocket, we could finish off the USSR. Instead, they dug in in August. Now, I have to hold for the long cold winter and hope they just starve to death while holding the line around moscow.

I am just spread too thin. Unless the German AI can make a move on Lenningrad, which I doubt given their current behavior, I will be hard pressed to trigger the BP.

On a side note, I wish that when a country joined the Allies in a war against you, you could get a pop-up. Persia joined the Allies and allowed Brittish troops to come up. I never noticed and started redeploying my MTN troops for a winter offensive, when all of a sudden I lost Baku to the brittish. Luckily I had a few left down there, but I had to "cheat" and take military control of Romania so I could have enough troops to launch a counter offensive.

The AI is just killing me.

 

[Tornadoli]

Isn't that kinda gamey to leave Axis then rejoin? Id most like to just stay in Axis, but if it becomes unplayable... does German AI always stop working when Italy is in Axis?
If so, then when should I rejoin?

 

[Spookyashell]

Isn't that kinda gamey to leave Axis then rejoin? Id most like to just stay in Axis, but if it becomes unplayable... does German AI always stop working when Italy is in Axis?
If so, then when should I rejoin?

In this case I would say no, if it is correct that there's a bug in the AI making Germany stop trying to advance when Italy is in the alliance.
It's more like hotfix for a gamebreaking bug.

 

[midget_roxx]

On a side note, I wish that when a country joined the Allies in a war against you, you could get a pop-up. Persia joined the Allies and allowed Brittish troops to come up. I never noticed and started redeploying my MTN troops for a winter offensive, when all of a sudden I lost Baku to the brittish. Luckily I had a few left down there, but I had to "cheat" and take military control of Romania so I could have enough troops to launch a counter offensive.

The AI is just killing me.

When you see the event in the log "x country joined alliance with y countries" right click on that, and you can set it so that you do get pop-ups. You can do the same with every nearly every event in the log.

 

[Tornadoli]

In this case I would say no, if it is correct that there's a bug in the AI making Germany stop trying to advance when Italy is in the alliance.
It's more like hotfix for a gamebreaking bug.

Eh... clear text please? Sorry, I just don't get what you mean...

 

[byzantium43]

Will the AI Italy joining the Axis also cause this bug?
while on a similar topic, will Germany ever actually send the Afrika Korps to north africa?

 

[unmerged(27886)]

Well, after I collapsed the pocket, took a few months of assaults and use of total airpower superiority (12-14 TAC, plus 6 FTR), I collapsed the pocket. Germany then was slowly (its like Decmeber?) closing another pocket on the coast south west of Leningrad from their amphibious landing point.

I then helped them take Leningrad to trigger the BP. I didn't realize Sverdelosk went back to the russians with the event, so lI had a LOT of divisions get stuck on redeployment for 1-2 months, killing my TC. Grrr

Anyway, by the time I turned my eye on Persia and Iraq and had redeployed my forces for it, Japan declared war on the US (Feb 42) UK/etc, and proceeded to march through everything in its path. I met them in India, and someehow I ended up with most of the coastline to guard.

I now have over 200 effective IC and have all of the pre-45 TC techs, so my TC is fine as long as I don't redeploy too many units. I am in the process of trying to sink the brittish/us fleets in preperation for sea-lion (using cruiser fleets and TAC while waiting for my battleships to finish). I saw my fleets doing good positioning wise versus the super stack CL-5 US fleets, so I loaded as them and saw they are actually BEHIND me in Naval techs.... for now anyway.

Funny, noticed that germany had taken northern ireland. Guess they found time for that...

No idea how I am going to take fortress UK as I have forbidden myself from using the Paratroop exploit (also, my lone Paratrooper would have to take off from German territory, and I rather would like an Italian Britain. ).

Maybe I just have to wait till I get a bunch of V2 rockets or something
I ran out of current tech to research and had a lot of IC burning a hole in my pocket, so I started researching rocketry (via german blueprints) and built 2 rocket test faciilities. mwuhahahaha. Now I am researching nuclear reactor tech (also with blueprints). Italy will have nukes and ICBMS!! Well, maybe by 1947... since its Nov of 42...